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Creating a Network of Reformers

Kamis, 02/10/2014

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Tuesday
Sept. 30 marked the last day of Indonesia as the lead chair of the Open
Government Partnership (OGP) movement. Mexico assumed this role starting on
Oct. 1. Some of us were together in New York last Wednesday to celebrate the
third anniversary of the OGP, which has grown from eight to 65 countries.

This
year alone, Tunisia, France and Bosnia Herzegovina joined the OGP. At the
event, we also launched the OGP four-year strategy to ensure that our movement
delivers real impact for citizens.

On
Sept. 19, 2006, I began work as executive director of the Rehabilitation and
Reconstruction Agency (BRR), our government agency responsible for the
post-Indian Ocean tsunami reconstruction in Aceh province — the area worst hit
by the disaster of Dec. 26, 2004. That afternoon, after days of protests, over
2,000 men, women and children who were still living in barracks, marched onto
our lawn, demanding the right to receive grants and to self-govern the housing
rehabilitation program.

My
team and I met with the protest leaders for hours. We worked with the local
police to secure the demonstration and to avoid violence. But the leaders were
in no mood for negotiation.

At
approximately 11:45 p.m., Metro TV, a national news channel, broadcast a line
of running text stating “Kuntoro Mangkusubroto held hostage by demonstrators”.
The protesters stayed put in our office compound overnight.

The
next morning, the demonstration was broken up. The masses stoned the police
officers and a number of people were injured, including a police officer.

After
the protest I turned to my team to drive them to further improve our
performance in delivering houses and in providing alternative livelihoods for
those still struggling to bounce back after the tsunami. In four years, we
built over 140,000 permanent houses.

The
idea of demonstrating in order to have a real say in policy was then a relative
novelty in Indonesia — a country where democracy was abruptly introduced just
less than two decades ago, and now it is the third-largest democracy in the
world with 240 millions people.
_____________

Open
government will not be possible without the hard work of those inside and
outside the government.
Today, we see countries where people are demanding more from their government.
What we see from Scotland, Catalonia, Egypt and Hong Kong are just examples. We
cannot assume that government is there for the sake of its people. Democracy’s
next challenge, our next challenge, is how to fill democracy in our daily
lives.

How
do we put in place the tools and mechanisms for policy making that will provide
citizens with an alternative to taking to the streets to voice discontent with
the government? This is the void that can be filled by our work in open
government.

Our
partnership can help ensure delivery of better services and more targeted
policies, and ensure that people can effectively participate in their
government in peace.

To
me, open government is about improving the policy-making process. The question
we must address is “How do we meet the needs of the people?” It will require
more than commitments and support for open data or open budgets or access to
information.

First,
it will require humility and a willingness to listen to the people. You are
here because you believe reform can help improve how you deliver the services
to the citizens in your country.

No
matter how clever or innovative your commitments may be, the citizens will not
readily accept your programs if they do not have faith in the system.

To
build citizens’ trust in open government, we must show that we are willing to
listen to them. It means we must actively engage them, and put them at the
center of our development agenda.

Second,
we must improve data literacy and data usage rates. In Indonesia, data has been
kept hidden from citizens because data is power. Data is money.

While
many government agencies have taken on open-data initiatives as a way to
improve their efficiency and transparency, we must admit that the data literacy
rate and thus data usage rate is still very poor.

If
we want citizens to use the data, if we want open data to become a tool for
greater accountability, we need more educated citizens. To this end, we need to
improve data literacy and the availability of meaningful data. Also, our
friends in civil society need support to raise awareness on the new role
citizens can play with the wider accessibility of data.

Lastly,
we must support reformers at all levels. Open government will not be possible
without the hard work of those inside and outside the government who believe in
change for the better.

But
they are challenged by bureaucratic behemoths that would like to maintain the
status quo.

We
must rally, exchange ideas and galvanize support for reformers in national and
sub-national levels who are working tirelessly to take concrete steps in
promoting transparency, combating corruption and capitalizing on new
technologies to strengthen democracy. This is what the OGP is all about — to
create a network of reformers because we cannot innovate alone.

Our
network of reformers will help to create small islands of effectiveness and
accountability that will help push forward this rising tide of open government.

Indonesia
is honored to be the co-chair of a new initiative, the OECD (Organization for
Economic Co-operation and Development) Network on Open and Innovative
Government in Southeast Asia, a collaborative effort to promote open government
policies and strengthen open government actions in Southeast Asia.

After
four years in Aceh, and seeing countless protests and criticisms of the
management of housing and funds and the speed of recovery, one of my deputies
remarked, “We should thank them for every demonstration, critique, item of
ridicule or even sabotage that was addressed toward the BRR.

“Why
so? Because those were the things that pushed the BRR crew to work even harder
to improve its performance.”
______________
The above is abridged from a keynote speech by the writer, the chairman of the
Presidential Working Unit for the Supervision and Management of Development
(UKP4) at the International Forum on Open Government held by the Organization
for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris on Sept. 30.